The place was emptying fast, and I was looking around to see who I might recognize from the jazz cognoscenti. Crouch? Hentoff? Chinen? Well, there was one: Howard Mandel, a longtime editor and contributor to Down Beat and an accomplished jazz writer in his own right. He's also been one of my mentors, and extraordinarily generous with his guidance. "Hey, guys," I said. "That's Howard. I gotta go say hi." Indeed, I'd never actually met Howard, only corresponded and talked over the phone.
"Howard? Mike West!" I said.
"Mike!" he shouted and gave me a big smile. "Glad you could make it!"
Unfortunately, I'd caught him at a bad time. Howard is president of the Jazz Journalists Association and was, at that moment, caught up in some serious business talk with another colleague. I stood quietly, not wanting to butt in and figuring I'd simply wait my turn, while my friends milled about a little bit, waiting for me, but not really sure what else to do in the meantime. (Sorry, guys, if I put you in a bad spot.)
Then came another interruption, as a balding middle-aged man with a good-natured grin came strolling up. "How are you with tunes?" He asked, sauntering into the small circle that Howard, myself, and the other writer had made. "Tunes," he repeated. "I need a setlist. Who knows what the tunes were?"
"Hi Gary," Howard said.
It was Gary Giddins. Gary. Flippin. Giddins. The man who made me want to write about jazz, who'd inspired me with his book Visions of Jazz, was standing before me. I was so stunned, so taken aback, that I actually gasped and put a hand to my chest.
The motion caught his eye."You?" he said, smiling at me. Howard introduced us briefly, but Giddins was too focused on his mission and I was too dumbstruck for either of us to really notice.
"Um," I mumbled, "I knew the names of, like, five of them."
Never letting his grin go, Giddins walked off to find more information. I watched him go out into the lobby of the theater, and suddenly realizing Howard had more important things to attend to I broke away.
At the bar I caught up to him. "Mr. Giddins," I said, surprised to hear myself out of breath, "I didn't get to say anything back there--" he looked confused.
Article comments
1 - scott
Great story!
2 - Pico
Wait a minute, you met....zingzing? Holy shit, what an evening!
All joking aside, that whole thing getting to catch Ornette perform and rubbing elbows with the big boys of jazz journalism sounds like a pretty damn cool experience in my book.
3 - zingzing
pico,
meeting me is something you never forget. unless you drink so much that you forget everything. which happens all the time. or more frequently than it should. mike, apparently, doesn't remember me peeing on his leg. which was a lot of fun.
it was an interesting evening. after the concert we went down to some club in the east village and saw some more jazz, of a decidedly trad nature, with ping-pong and pool going on all around us. there was a plethora of barely-clothed women and vomiting into sinks. AT A JAZZ CLUB. ahh, new york.
4 - Michael J. West
Ahh, yes. The barely clothed women and the vomit-filled sink at Fat Cat were a nice little bonus.
Pico, I've actually known zingzing since we were 6. We've been music-geeking together since high school, drinking together since college, and generally making asses of ourselves in large metropolises all across this great nation of ours.
5 - zingzing
to a quarter century together! raise your tee-ball bats high! higher, mike! swing at the ball, not the tee! for fuck's sake, you little shit, figure it out!
6 - Pico
I dunno zing, maybe Mike didn't notice you because he was too busy peeing down his leg himself when he met Gary Giddens ;&)